By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
NOV. 1, 2019 | Up until 1984, Gwinnett County had no retail shopping focus. With its 15 towns then (16 now, as Peachtree Corners became its own city in 2012), no one city stood out as a mecca for retail and entertainment.
Something changed all this in 1984, as Gwinnett Place Mall opened on February 1, and immediately people from all corners of the county (and from distant northeast counties) started flocking to the mall.
While the mall flourished for years, since then the Gwinnett Place luster has dramatically declined. Another mall (Sugarloaf) was being built close by. Then the largest mall in the state, the Mall of Georgia has effectively pulled business away, and it now thrives on its own for retail activities and a wide variety of eating establishments. Then, too, another element: the auto industry moved near the Mall of Georgia, offering most major brands along Georgia Highway 20.
Mark the year 2021 when there will be a new focus for Gwinnett, at least in restaurants and entertainment. That’s the date the new Revel property is expected to open in the midst of the county at the Infinite Energy Center. It’ll be massive, a $900 million, 118 acre mixed use and entertainment complex. It will also eventually include a major convention hotel, built adjacent to the convention center, something long needed.
Revel essentially will be the new focus of Gwinnett, as it will pull people from all of Gwinnett, and way beyond. There will be a continuing certain excitement going on, the area often full of people dining or patronizing entertainment facilities. One of its attractions is easy access. It’ll have major roadways funneling people to it: I-85, Highway 316 and Sugarloaf Parkway.
It’s being built by North America Properties as a public-private partnership with the Gwinnett County and Visitors Bureau. This is the same company that built Avalon center in North Fulton County, which has become popular.
Here are some of Revel’s features:
- Some 300,000 square feet of curated shopping and chef-driven restaurants;
- An 18,000 square foot food hall;
- A 12-screen Regal Theatre movie complex, consisting of 55,000 square feet;
- A total of 300 residences, of single and multi-family housing;
- Eventually 865,000 square feet of high tech offices in several six story buildings; and
- The Westin Hotel, a four star, 340 room unit.
It’ll be visited often by Gwinnettians, we suspect, but will have a ready-made, continually changing crowd from the 1,000 events that the Infinite Energy Center hosts each year. Put it this way: there will be a continual “buzz” around the area.
Within 15 minutes drive of Revel live 344,551 people, with an average household income of $86,326, and 54.6 percent college education. But its draw will be from even farther away, not just the 900,000 people in Gwinnett, but in reality, all of Northeast Georgia.
Opened recently is the first of several parking areas for Revel. The parking decks are massive, with a capacity of 2,400 vehicles, perhaps the largest in suburban Atlanta. While parking was the first sign of the activity at the site, starting in January 2020 will see the first construction for Revel, aimed at its 2021 opening.
- To catch a glimpse of what the area will look like, see renderings at https://experiencerevel.com/media/1067/revel_leasing_2019_7_rev-1.pdf.
The Revel site will send Gwinnett into a new level of sophistication and development, and become a new focus for the county.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Follow Us